"The country's nuclear programme is based on well thought out three-stage programme. The priority fuel available in the country for it is Thorium. First, we should begin with Uranium reactors and move on to Thorium by further developing the programme," he said.

The most important part of benefit to India was import of uranium. The existing reactors are running at high load factors now. Russian reactors have been completed.
Other reactors have very high overnight costs and will only increase the power costs. The indigenous PHWRs are the most economic, at least in India. The building of these reactors should be scaled up and foreign reactors need be accepted only as sweeteners for uranium imports.
Conversions of indigenous reactors to high burn up thorium- plutonium or thorium-LEU fuel should be seriously taken up. It will result in creation of U-233. Fast reactors with metallic Th/U233 fuel could be thorium breeders.

The first step of the three-stage program involves building indigenously engineered pressurized heavy-water reactors (PHWRs) and light-water reactors to produce plutonium. India recently announced it will build 10 700 MW PHWRs

The second stage uses fast-neutron reactors fueled by plutonium to breed U-233 from thorium. This is the focus of the current project.

In the third stage, the country will use advanced heavy-water reactors for power generation. They will be fueled with U-233 obtained from the irradiation of thorium in PHWRs and fast reactors.

There is one detail which could or should change in the three stage program as described.
A design of AHWR has been prepared but not built. The calandra design of PHWR could be used with half meter bundles of thorium fuel as designed. As a further evolution, a required fraction of bundles could be replaced by a thorium blanket, and a thermal breeder cycle introduced.